Fencingmatt... I would like to ask: who is going to be responsible for the after effects of child-adult sex being legalised? I have lots of questions for you regarding the "practical" side of what you suggest.
Seriously, if child-adult sex were to be okay, who takes the responsibility when a ten year old girl becomes pregnant? She would not have the ability to hold a job- and besides the financial problems, most ten year olds lack the emotional stability necessary to raise a child. They also lack the resolve to care for the child even when they "don't feel like it". Most ten year olds won't even clean their room or do their homework without prodding!
Would her parents have to be responsible, as is the case with most pre-teen pregnancies nowadays? But wait, you think everyone should have free will... so why should her parents be forced to pay for her choices?
Would the father of the infant be held responsible? Again, he ought to be free to choose not to have anything to do with the girl or their unborn child, right? And you certainly couldn't force her to give the baby up for adoption or abort it!
Or say an eleven-year-old boy gets AIDS from the adult woman he's having sex with. Who is responsible for his medical bills and long-term care? Or, what if the condom breaks and he gets her pregnant? Is he obliged to pay child support (as adult fathers are), and if so how the hell can an eleven year old afford to do that?
Or, since you are such the libertarian, do you think that kids who get into bad situations like that should simply be left to wither and die if no one feels like helping them?
The main problem with your "yay sexual freedom for kids" ideas is that you seem to think of children as small adults. They are absolutely not. This is the reason why they are not given the same rights as adults.
As a mother of six, I can tell you: children lack the capacity to make such serious decisions, and they lack the ability to handle the aftermath of things like sex, pregnancy, and disease. Frankly, most teenagers nowadays lack this ability too and should probably refrain from sex as well. This might not be true if we lived two hundred years ago, but in most modern cultures children simply are not equipped to deal with it.
And it has nothing to do with IQ and intelligence, and everything to do with emotional (and physical) maturity. Your twelve-year-old friend with the 150 IQ is no more equipped to deal with the responsibilites of adulthood than any other twelve year old, sorry to tell you.
Seriously, do some research on the effects of children who have sexual experiences. The results are not pretty, even when the child believed s/he had "consented". And then, take a look at kids who have become parents in early life (i.e., pre-teens or early teens) and tell me how well they usually wind up faring in life.
Fencingmatt, you ARE a pedophile-apologist. The vast majority of adults understand that any adult-child sexual experience is an abuse of power (and hence, abuse). Someday when you grow up (and no, I don't mean in years), you will understand why children must be protected as they are. I hope.
P.S.
Incidentally, in reference to one of your earlier comments- in most places, it *is* illegal to sexually molest a mentally handicapped adult or an elderly person suffering from dementia. Just so ya know.
